Well, again, welcome, Presidents Day weekend.
Right? Yeah.
Which president is it?
All of them.
This is for all. Is for everybody.
Is that what it is?
Yeah.
Well, happy birthday, president.
Hey, Matthew.
Matthew nine today.
Let me just say this, though, before we get into Matthew nine.
Thank you for the opportunity to be gone last week.
And, and I got to spend, quite a few days in Idaho with our kids and,
and our grandkids and having a great time just being together with them.
Doing a lot of family stuff.
It was, it was it was a great time to be away.
Thank you for the opportunity.
David did a great job.
Closing out chapter eight last week.
I appreciate him.
But it is super good to be back.
It's it's.
Of course, I never get enough time with our kids,
you know, and and the grandkids, but I sure do miss not being here.
So it's it's good to be back with you.
In Matthew nine, we're going to
look at the first portion of that chapter
and then wrap up Matthew nine next week as we continue
to make our way through the book.
But I want to help us understand, Matthew, what's in this book,
why this book is written the way it is and the uniqueness of it.
Four Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, two of the four Gospels
were written by the disciples of Jesus, Matthew and John.
Mark and Luke were not disciples of Jesus, so they're not eyewitness accounts
of the life of Jesus and his public ministry.
Or was they were kind of investigative reporters
that were telling others eyewitness accounts about it.
But Matthew and John are eyewitness accounts
of the, of the life, the public ministry of Jesus.
And so what we have in the book of Matthew is this is Matthew's experience of Jesus
walking with him, being with him,
observing what he did, how he did it.
And, and sitting at the feet of Jesus.
Matthew was a Jew, as was John.
And so Matthew, as he presents the history of Jesus
and his experience with Jesus, he presents it from a Jewish mindset.
And he's writing basically to Jews
about the revelation of the Jewish Messiah.
The prophecy for generations had been that a Jewish Messiah was coming
that would liberate the Jewish nation, would liberate the Jewish people.
They thought it would be a political liberation.
And in this context, specifically from the Roman occupiers of their land,
as Matthew would discover, and as we know, as we read Scripture,
the liberation that the Messiah brought was not
a political liberation, but a spiritual liberation,
and the inauguration of the beginning of the Kingdom of God
that will culminate at the Messiah's return
and the establishment of that kingdom on the earth.
And so it's it's a very Jewish written book
from a Jewish mindset written to Jewish thinkers.
And so what Matthew presents the way he writes
and the things that he communicates are from that perspective.
And you and I don't grasp the depth
of that and the fullness of it, because that's not our background.
And so to understand how beautiful this account is
and how powerful and profound it is, we've got to do some interpretation,
not just of the Scripture, but of the Jewishness of it.
And so I'm going to draw some of that out as we go through this, especially
this morning.
So far this year, just looking at the first section,
this chunk of Matthew chapters, let's say one through ten,
there's three sections in this in chapters one through ten, chapters one and four.
The first section is the revelation of the person of Jesus.
So Matthew is just revealing to us the person of Jesus,
who he who he was as a person born into this world.
Matthew five through seven
are the principles of Jesus that were recorded.
We call that the sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says, here's
the principles of my discipleship, the principles of my kingdom.
So one through four chapters, one through four, the person of Jesus revealed.
Chapters five, six, seven, the principles of Jesus being recorded.
And then in this section, chapters eight through ten,
the power of Jesus being released.
So what Jesus has just got done doing in the sermon on the Mount
saying, here's, here's my kingdom, this is my this is my authority.
This is a whole new way of understanding the kingdom of God.
And he taught it with great authority.
And so now the natural question is, okay, you can talk a good game.
Jesus.
But do you have any power?
And authority to back it up?
And so chapters
eight, nine, ten Jesus says, yeah, I do have power to serve to back it up.
And as a proof of that, I'm going to release my power into your world
so you can see that I have power in the world to back up the authority
that I've been talking about.
So that's wherever you go.
And in chapters eight, nine, ten, we're going to see the power of Jesus
released and unleashed.
And we saw that in chapter eight, in these miracles,
in chapters eight, nine, ten, there's ten miracles that Jesus will do that
will prove he has the power and authority
to back up his claims spiritually.
And we see these first three miracles in chapter eight.
These are miracles just by the grace of God.
These first three people that that are healed
by Jesus as he releases his power and authority
in this world to back up his claims were done simply by God's grace.
None of these three people deserved anything from God.
The first who was healed was a leper and a leper.
Was that person who was this, this debilitating and fatal disease, incurable,
who was cut off, ostracized, cast out,
denied by the community, by the society.
He had no standing, no place completely shut off from all human contact.
He brought nothing to the table that would make God say, you know what?
You deserve to be healed.
It was just by the grace of God.
The second person who was healed and in chapter eight
was on behalf of a Roman soldier whose servant was sick
and Jesus, in responding to the faith as a Roman soldier, a non-Jew,
the opposition force
who was brutalizing the Romans were the Jewish God's people
asked Jesus to heal his servant,
the Roman soldier brought nothing to the table
that would say, that would make God say, you know what, Roman soldier?
You're worthy for me to step in and intervene and, and, and and do nothing.
It was simply by the grace of God that soldier did not deserve God's good hand.
And then the third
person in Romans eight was Peter's mother in law,
who didn't ask Jesus for anything.
She was she was out cold.
And Jesus, just by his grace, it was a woman and woman.
Women in this culture had no standing whatsoever.
She had no right to ask anything.
And she didn't ask anything.
It was just by the grace of God.
And so what we see these first three of ten miracles
is the grace of God extending through the person of Jesus
to assert his complete authority that backs up his claims.
And then these next two miracles that we see
in, as David taught last week,
Jesus's authority,
over chaos and his authority to deliver
when it calms the storm and frees the demon possessed men.
And he's he's saying, look, I know I made some big claims,
and now I'm going to prove to you I have authority to make those claims.
And then in chapter nine, we're going to continue to see
the revelation of his power and the release of his power in the world,
and the inauguration of a new kingdom.
Here's what I want us to get the big idea for this.
This morning.
Jesus doesn't patch torn up lives.
He recreates them.
Jesus did not come
to patch the holes in our life.
He came to recreate our life.
We have to understand this because I think this is
this is what we miss so often.
We know that our lives get broken right?
We know the holes that we have, the terrors
that we have, the pains that we have, the problems that we have.
And so many of us come to God and say, God, fix that right?
Like step in and do something
like, patch this.
Jesus has too much power
and a thorn to patch it up to get us further down the road.
He wants to recreate it.
He doesn't want to patch the hole in the tire
so we can make it a few more miles down the road of our life.
He wants to completely remake it and reform it
and reshape it, make it completely new.
And I think are so many of our problem is, God, would you just help
me get further down the road?
He says, no, I don't want to do that.
I've come to make all things new, including you.
And if all you want from me is to patch your hole
so you can get off, you can make it another day.
You don't understand who I am.
You don't understand what I do.
And you're asking far too little of me.
And I'm not going to devalue
who I am to fit in your little box.
It's a new kingdom,
and I'm too big
to fit in your left over broken spaces.
I want to recreate them to understand.
So let me read Matthew nine verses one through eight,
and there's a, corollary passage in Mark 12.
I'm going to read that one too, in just a minute.
But Mark nine verses one through eight, this is what the Bible says.
And getting into a boat, he crossed over and came to his own city,
which is Capernaum. We'll learn that later.
And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed.
And when Jesus saw their face, he said to the paralytic,
take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven.
And behold, some of the scribes
said to themselves, this man is blaspheming.
And Jesus knowing their thoughts.
That's a frightful sentence.
He said, why do you think evil in your hearts?
For which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise and walk,
but that you may know that the Son of Man has authority
there it is on earth to forgive sins.
He then said to the paralytic, rise, take up your bed and go home.
And he rose and went home.
Then the crowd saw it.
When the crowd saw it, they were afraid,
and they glorified God who had given such authority to men.
And that's how Matthew tells this eyewitness account.
Now in in Mark chapter two,
we see this same account from a different perspective.
Now, Mark was not a disciple, so this is not Mark's eyewitness account.
Many people believe that Mark was the scribe for Peter,
and Peter was a disciple.
So this is probably Peter's retelling of Mark as Mark writes it down for Peter.
Okay, so
first, chapter two, verse one.
And when he returned to Capernaum, that's his home towns.
After some days, it was reported that he was at home,
whose home is probably Peter's home, because he had just
healed Peter's mother in law,
and many were gathered together
so that there was no more room, not even at the door.
And he was preaching the word to them.
You know, I read that and I thought, that is awesome.
Like he's not doing anything.
He just preaching.
And there are so many people that come from the entire town
that they can't even get inside anymore.
That sorry.
You're stuck with me.
And so far, there no line outside the door.
So we'll just we'll go with what we got.
And it is what it is.
But. Jesus, he could lay it down, preaching,
And they
came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.
And when they could not get near him
because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him.
And when they had made an opening, they let down the bed
on which the paralytic lay.
And when Jesus saw their faith, he said of the paralytic, son,
your sins are forgiven.
Now some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts,
why does this man speak like that? He's blaspheming.
Who can forgive sins but God alone?
And immediately Jesus perceived in his spirit that they requested,
that they thus questioned within themselves,
said to them, why do you question these things in your hearts?
Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise,
take up your bed and walk,
but that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
He said to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.
And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all,
so that they were all amazed and glorify God, saying,
we've never saw anything like this.
So same account, different perspectives.
It's important to understand
both what Matthew says about this and what Mark says about this.
What we
learn is that there's a paralyzed man,
and we learn from both accounts that they're friends.
There's four of them
are so concerned about their friends need
that they do everything in their power
to introduce their friend to Jesus.
And the Bible says that Jesus saw faith.
Whose faith did Jesus see that prompted his healing
in their friends faith?
Apparently the paralytic had no faith whatsoever,
but their friends had faith.
There are times in yours in my life
when we need to borrow someone else's faith,
when we just don't have it anymore,
stuff goes down.
Life happens.
Our faith falters, and we think God help.
And we need people around our lives
who can believe for us when we can't believe anymore.
You understand
who have enough faith.
I say, listen, I know that you can't see this right now.
You can't understand this right now.
You have no faith.
Let me lend you my faith for a time.
And this is why it's so important.
Why we are a part of a group of people
who are people of faith
that we walk with and do life with each other, who are people.
Because there will come times, you know, this
either in your own life or on behalf of your kids or what,
where you're like, I can't in them, I don't know.
And we need people who say, listen, though
you don't believe in this moment, let me believe for you
to understand. Yeah.
And sometimes that's all God requires in order
to work in the faith of the one who has lost their faith.
And their
faith became the touch point for a healing from Jesus.
It wasn't his faith,
but it provided a touch point for him to be healed.
And the first words out of Jesus's mouth, well, let me say this.
Let me say this. Let me see this.
What these people are doing
is they're evangelizing their friend.
Now, all evangelism means is good news.
When you evangelize, all of you do all that is, it's a churchy word.
Don't let it scare you.
All it means is you tell someone the good news of Jesus.
That's what that means.
And so these people are like, look, you have a need
that cannot be met by anything or anyone.
I got good news for you, and I want to introduce you to Jesus.
That's what they're saying.
Oftentimes, I want you to notice this.
Oftentimes evangelism begins with being inconvenienced.
These for stopped everything in their life.
They were so burdened by their friend and their friends need that.
They thought how do we get this guy to Jesus?
How do we introduce him to Jesus?
They were so burdened and so overwhelmed
because their friend had a need that they could they couldn't meet.
Nobody could mean it, but they knew Jesus could.
Anybody?
And they were so overwhelmed,
out of love for their friend
who was far from God and suffering
that they would stop at nothing to introduce him
to Christ.
Do you love anybody like that?
What have you stopped at?
So they press in the door.
They can't get in.
They'll make a way.
Here's what we have to understand.
The best of friends don't just support you.
They bring you to Jesus.
If you are a Christ follower
and you have people in your life who need Jesus,
the best friend you can be is not someone who just supports them
in their pain and encourages them.
The best thing you can do is stop at nothing
to introduce them and bringing them to Christ.
To understand, know.
This is why I'm teaching that class tonight.
I will give you the tools you have to have
the desire.
The first thing Jesus says this guy is what?
He's laying there paralyzed.
Do you have a Bible?
Look at it.
No, he doesn't say your sins are forgiven.
That's not what he says. First, right?
Yeah.
He doesn't say, rise. Take up your bed and walk.
What you say, the first thing he says, take heart.
Be of good cheer. Now watch this.
These guys are so burdened that their friend.
No, Jesus, they can't get in.
So they go to the roof and start tearing off the roof.
This is Peter's house.
Can you imagine what Peter's thinking is like?
Look, Jesus, I followed you and you're just disrupting everything.
Like, first
mother in law.
I mean, we talked about that two weeks ago.
Like I never asked that you.
Well, go with it, though.
And now my house.
Do you understand that sometimes
when you attach to Jesus, he makes stuff chaotic?
And so Peter's looking at this.
The roofs came, you know, whole.
And all of a sudden this paralyzed man is laying there
and the first words out of Jesus mouth is, what can't be of good.
Yeah, literally be of good cheer. Okay. Wait, wait.
Be of good cheer.
I'm paralyzed.
Why does Jesus say be of good cheer?
There are times
when you and I don't need a new situation.
What we need is a good word from God.
There are times
when what we need is to hear God say, listen,
I know you, I see you, and I've got good news for you.
That's the first thing we need to hear from him.
There are times when we don't need a new plan.
We don't need good advice.
We need hope.
Spoken to us.
And that's what Jesus does.
First, I have hope for you.
I have hope for you.
Sometimes
when we enter into the difficulty of another person
and speak hope into their life, we're not blowing smoke up.
There's what we're doing is that hope is fuel
for their faith.
You reminded me that God is good
and that he can
be of good cheer.
That's evangelism.
It's good news.
And he says to this man, be of good cheer.
He's looking at the paralyzed guy,
sees the faith of his friends,
be of good cheer.
Here's the good news. Your sins are forgiven.
What do you think the four guys are thinking?
Well, what?
The paralyzed.
We tore the roof off so we can get to you.
And you're going to tell him his sins are forgiven?
I mean, what do you say?
We don't know. But what's the x?
What do we think they were expecting?
When you beat them, you get up a walk and Jesus says your sins are forgiven.
What do you think the paralyzed guy's thinking comes over?
Okay, cool.
Let me suggest something.
I think Jesus knows his greatest not only need,
but his greatest desire.
Healing
would come, but healing was evidence.
Forgiveness was the mission.
And Jesus addressed his deepest
need first, not the most visible need.
Paralysis was temporary.
Unforgiven. Sin was eternal.
Jesus understood.
And I'm going to suggest to you that this man understood that
Jesus will deal with the eternal problem
first, before he addresses the physical one.
See, the worst thing in life
is not what hurts us,
but what separates us from God.
And this is why I think
Jesus addressed his spiritual need first, because I think
this man wanted that addressed
though he couldn't speak it.
What do we know about Jesus?
In his response to the scribes who said, this guy's blaspheming?
What do we know about Jesus?
He knew there what?
So put it together.
He knows the scribes thoughts
and he addresses their thoughts.
Right?
That's what he deals with.
I suggest to you
that in looking at this paralyzed man, he knows that this paralyzed guy
ultimately knows life is fleeting and is difficult.
I need to be right with God before all else.
And so Jesus deals first with that deepest desire that this man had.
God, would you just make me right with you?
If you could do that, I will give up my legs.
That was the greatest desire that this man had.
That's my suggestion to you.
That's why Jesus dealt with it.
First, because he knows our thoughts.
To understand.
And so the question that I have in reading is understanding
that is this.
If all I do is want
God to show up and meet my most immediate, visible need
and I'm willing to sacrifice
being right with him for him to do it.
Why would he?
Why should he?
Can we say,
can we say, can we be okay?
Say, Lord, even if you never hear me,
I just want to be right with you.
Is your faith
worth your legs?
That's what he was saying to the paralytic in the paralytic said absolutely,
absolutely.
And of course, out of that
just says, okay, look.
And you don't think I can forgive sin?
What's easier to say your sins are forgiven?
Or to say, get up and walk.
So to prove to you I have authority over what I said,
I'm going to release my power in this guy's life.
Get up your
take up your bed and walk.
Let me just say this
a word about healing and repentance, and I just
I just want to throw this out there.
I don't have all the answers this,
but I just want to help you understand what the Bible says.
There's a danger in us walking away from this thinking, well,
if someone isn't healed because they're sinful, that's not
that's not what the Bible says. That's not what I'm saying.
Please don't think that if someone is ill, that's because they're sin.
Unrepentant sin.
Don't don't think that and don't ever put that on somebody.
If you just had more faith, you're more holy. You'd be healed.
Don't ever, please don't ever do that.
That's just a lie from the devil. So I want I want to be clear about that.
But I also want us to understand Scripture.
And the book of James says, therefore
confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.
The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
Here's what he's saying. You're saying that there's a correlation
between unrepentant and
unforgiven sin and our bodies.
Again, it doesn't mean that if someone's sick or ill that they're sin.
But think about it like this.
If if, if if if you're
living in the sin of alcoholism
and you say, God, please heal my liver,
God is going to say no.
Why don't you confess that sin and repent of it?
First,
you're a chain smoker and you say, God, please heal my lungs.
He's going to say, why don't you repent of your sin?
The that that's more along this line.
You understand that?
And so and so we have to be.
But there's another verse in, in,
in the book of third John, John the Apostle, he's an old man.
Look at what he said. This is this is amazing.
I don't have the answer. That's not what the Bible says.
Beloved, listen, I, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health.
That's not a bad prayer, but look at what he attached to it.
Just as your soul prospers.
In other words, listen.
I pray that your body is as healthy
as your soul. Wow.
And so many times
when we have these needs, God, I need you to step in and intervene.
Do this for me physically, he says I can,
but you make sure.
That the spiritual thing
is taken care of first.
Many people ask me to pray for them in this church, and I do.
But my prayer for you
is, father, as they are devoted to you
and right and serving your kingdom, move and intervene in their life
so they can continue serving you and loving you.
Don't just heal them so they can go off in their sin
to understand,
Yeah. Yes.
In in Mark
chapter two, verse 11 about this account, Jesus says, look, you're healed.
He says, now go home.
He sends them home.
He doesn't say, you go out in the public square and tell them all about me.
He doesn't say.
He says, just go home. And here's what I think that's important.
Here's why I think that's important,
because healing that
Jesus has to be seen at home first.
It has to be seen at home first.
The change in you as a man, as a husband,
as a father, has to show up at home behind closed doors.
First.
The change in you as a wife,
as a mother, has to show up behind closed doors at home.
First.
If we act apart in public but don't live apart
at home, it's a false conversion and a false faith.
You understand this
well.
We're nice to everybody else.
And a terrible person at home.
It's a false faith.
Go home.
Live a saved, redeemed life at home.
And then we come to the other.
In verse nine.
And Jesus passed on from there.
And he saw a man called Matthew sitting
at the tax collectors booth and said to him, follow me.
And he rose and followed him.
This tax collector,
we know from another passage that this guy Matthew, his name was Levi.
That's important because he was probably from the tribe of Levi.
And that is important because the tribe of Levi was the priestly tribe.
So here's this young man who was probably part of the priestly tribe,
who should have gone into the ministry but rather
chose the world of materialism.
He became a tax collector
in this day, as Rome ruled the world,
they taxed the Jews very heavily.
They had what was called a poll tax, which was they taxed the right to breathe
because they believe that all air was Roman air.
And so for the Jews, once a boy turned 14,
until the age he was 60, he was taxed for the right to breathe.
Girls, they started at 12 years old to 60, taxed him for the right to breathe.
They had a will tax.
If you had a card with one will, you were tax a certain amount,
but every will you added to that cart was more taxed.
They taxed every wheel, even the for the fisherman every fish was taxed.
They didn't tax the right to fish and they didn't tax what you gained
on the fish though they did tax income tax 10% right off the top.
But they added to that tax for every single fish that the fishermen,
they were overtaxed. Yeah. Anybody.
And so then this he's not in the Bible.
But historically there's this guy named Newsome who came along that copied
their tax code.
Yeah, yeah.
And and so and so the way Rome collected their taxes
is they use Jews to collect taxes from Jews.
And a Jewish man could buy the right to be a tax collector.
He would have to pay them, pay Rome for the right to collect taxes,
and then Rome would tell him, here's how much all the taxes are.
They wouldn't tell the popular show.
The people had no idea what the tax rate was.
The tax code was the the Rome told the tax collector, and then Rome told
the tax collector, this is what our do is you can tax them how much you want.
And once you pay us, you get to keep everything else and so the tax collectors
were extortionists, backed by the Roman authority and by Roman soldiers.
So the Jews were at their mercy.
And so a Jewish tax collector
was hated and despised by the Jews.
He he lost all of his Jewishness by being a tax collector.
And so this guy Levi, who probably should have been in the ministry,
sought materialism instead
and cut himself off from everything
that was Jewish and became a tax collector
and he was despised by the Jews.
But he was also because he was you.
He was disposable by Rome.
So understand what this means.
For Matthew to follow Jesus,
it cost him greatly.
We know from the book of.
We know from the book of, Luke
after this same account.
After this,
he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth.
And he said to him, follow me.
And leaving everything, he rose and follow him.
We don't understand what this means when he says, you left everything.
And notice Matthew doesn't say he left everything.
Matthew just says, I followed.
Luke tells us that he left everything.
Here's why that's important.
He had already left his Jewish community.
He couldn't go back to the Jews because he was a tax collector.
He lost his Jewish community.
He lost his use. Ideally, he lost his Jewish connections.
He lost his Jewish family.
He lost his Jewish everything because he was a tax collector.
So now for him to leave,
being a tax collector now, he was cutting himself off from Rome.
He can never go back.
If this Jesus thing didn't work out and started being a tax collector again,
he was. He became an island to himself.
He had no Jewish connection and now he had no Roman allegiance.
He left everything the fishermen
Peter and Andrew, James and John.
If the Jesus thing didn't work out,
they go back to fishing, which they did after the crucifixion.
Matthew could not go back to anything.
If Jesus didn't work out for him, he was done
for him to follow Jesus.
He left his paycheck.
He left his position.
He left his protection.
He left his stability.
He left his future.
He left his identity.
He left everything.
So much courage.
Listen.
Discipleship begins where excuses end.
I wonder
how many of us, how many times we said, Lord, I would love to.
I just.
I just can't right now.
Can't afford it.
Too busy.
Got this going on.
Got that going on. Too much in debt.
I mean that would I would have to leave,
you know.
And Matthew is one of my heroes.
Such a courageous young man.
He had nothing.
If this didn't work out.
No negotiation, no delay, no conditions.
Total allegiance.
Here's what I know.
Comfortable faith isn't the same as Christianity.
This is not the same.
And so what? Jesus.
Jesus is radical man and he's called.
He said, look, this is what my kingdom is.
I'm not calling you
to be a moral good person.
I I'm calling you to a total allegiance
to a completely new kingdom.
We've got a few more verses.
You all right?
Here we have verse ten.
And Jesus reclined at table in the house.
So this is at Matthew's house.
Okay.
We call it a table in the house.
Behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining
with Jesus and his disciples.
I mean, the only friends Matthew had was a bunch of,
you know, sinners like him, right?
Tax collectors and prostitutes, you know, government people.
I mean, this is just kind of their kind of their world.
And when the
Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples,
why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
But when he heard it, he said, those who are
well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
Go and learn what this means.
I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I came to call, not to call the righteous,
but sinners.
We don't understand because this is such
a Jewish thing about eating with people.
This is why the reason is just revolted against it.
Let me tell you what's what happens,
when in the Jewish mindset, when they would eat with someone.
David, stand up here.
Like, if Dave and I are having a meal together.
Take a piece of the bread.
Just a piece you got to eat. I mean, that's it.
Like chunk. My gosh.
And just eat it.
Just eat it. Yeah.
I mean, we're we're eating together.
The loaf of bread, the bread together, you know
what happening in the Jewish mind
is this little bread is my sustenance.
It's my life.
Because as I eat it and my body ingests it,
the nutrients of it go into every cell of my body.
And same thing with Dave.
You're still eating it?
No, we need some wine or something to go with it.
Right?
Oh, no. It's church water.
We need water.
And so Dave's doing the same thing.
And as he eats that the nutrients from the loaf
are permeate a permeate permeating every cell in his body.
And so Dave and I are sharing from the same life.
And this life is now part of both of us.
Do you understand?
So to eat with someone means that now our lives are connected
now, not we're we're part of each other
now, and there's a relationship and there's an intimacy,
and there's my life is part of you, and your life is now part of me.
It was a special, sacred thing to eat with somebody.
Well done.
Here's your bread.
And and and and so what
they're saying is, Jesus, if you're this holy man, how can you share?
Let there life is a part of you.
They're horrible people and your life is a part of them.
You you've instituted this relationship between each other.
That doesn't compute.
What do you think?
Jesus says, I am the bread of life.
You partake of me
and now we are partaking of the same loaf together.
There's a sacredness and an intimacy between Christ followers.
In the Jewish mind, they
could never have a business meal and let it get
like, like rough and abusive with each other
because there's an intimacy to eating with each other.
And that's why it just didn't compute with them.
And Jesus says of him, listen, I didn't come to call righteous people.
I came to.
I came to call people who are sick.
I love what Matthew is doing.
He's throwing a party.
And this is one of the styles of evangelism.
It's to be able to throw Matthew parties.
I this what it is.
It's way that he invites all these sinners who don't know.
Jesus throws a party and has Jesus there so we can introduce him to Jesus.
It's one of the stars of Evangel.
This is why I want you to come tonight.
Some of you throw great parties.
That's your natural style of evangelism.
You just don't do it.
You throw parties, but you get liquored up and don't ever talk about Jesus.
And so, like, you're missing the point.
You're saying
I'm gonna teach you how to do this so it becomes evangelistic?
I mean, oftentimes you reach friends
better or faster with a meal than with a debate,
right? Yes.
And so I said, look, I didn't come to call righteous people, you think.
And religious people I came to call sick people who who are the sick people?
You know, you and me.
You and me.
Jesus just said in Matthew five, blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn.
You shall listen when you realize the poverty of your spirit,
when you realize how sick you are,
then you can be blessed by me.
Every one of us.
We're the sick when we realize our poverty.
Matter of fact, Paul will say in Romans three, none is righteous.
Who's the unrighteous ones?
We are because none is righteous. No, not one.
Not one understands.
No one seeks for God. All have turned aside.
Together they become worthless.
No one does good. Not even one
who are the sick that need
Jesus, not the sinners. Me?
I'm the sinner. You.
One last thing.
Two more versus let me do 16 or 17. You.
I don't know.
Starting in 14.
Then disciples of John came to him saying, why do we in the Pharisees fast
are your disciples? Don't fast.
And Jesus said to them, can the wedding guest mourn
as long as the bridegroom is with them?
The days will come
when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.
So he says, listen, I did.
You know the Jews were only required to fast one day a year on Yom Kippur.
But the Pharisees, they had them and their disciples fast two days a week,
just kind of prove how spiritual they were.
That's why Jesus addressed the fasting thing in the sermon on the Mount.
He said, when you fast, don't like
make yourself look miserable because all you're doing is trying to make
everybody think you're super religious and you're not.
Your hearts are so far from me.
All your religious activities, I mean, that darn thing.
And so Jesus says, look at all your people fast
because you're doing it all wrong for the wrong reasons.
Listen, my disciples, right now, they're enjoying my presence.
There's no reason to fast. I'm with them.
They don't have to fast. We're just having a good time.
Like they're experiencing me in the fullness of me.
So there's come at a time
when the bridegroom is going to leave, and then they'll fast.
Not out of mourning, though, out of anticipation.
They'll be so excited to be with me again that they will go without food
so they can lean into their, their, their spiritual relationship with me
as their connection with me.
So they will fast one day.
But right now we're just enjoying each other's company.
If you want any information on fasting, one of the books
I wrote in the Welcome Center on Spiritual Disciplines talks all about fasting.
I encourage you to pick it up to practice fasting,
not as a way to manipulate God's hand and not out of mourning,
but just out of anticipation that God, I cannot wait to be with you intimately.
And then Jesus says this, and I'll finish with this.
No one
puts a piece of cloth on old and an old garment for the patch.
Tears away from the garments, and a worse tear is made,
and neither is new wine put into old wineskins.
If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed.
But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, so both are preserved.
Here's what he's saying.
Back in the day, when they would make wine,
they would put them in like leather pouches.
This is not one of them.
It's the closest I could find on Amazon.
But similarly they would.
It's new and they would put new wine in there as as wine fermented
because it has some elasticity in it.
And this new it would stretch as the wine expanded.
Okay, new wine to new wineskins.
Jesus says nobody puts new wine in old wineskins,
because if this is already expended, all its elasticity
and you put new wine in that, that wine is going to expand
and the pouch will burst, and the new wine
and the wine, old wineskin will both be ruined, he said.
So new wine is put into new wineskins.
Here's what he's saying.
Wine is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.
And what Jesus is saying here is
the father doesn't pour new Holy Spirit work
into old wineskins, because the old wineskins can't contain it.
They've lost their elasticity
and Jesus doesn't want to do away with the old.
He came to fulfill it, but the new he wants to do
will be in people's lives who stay elastic,
who stay flexible, who stay permeable.
Religion wants to modify.
Jesus wants to transform.
The Spirit of God will create new life.
And the Spirit of God is always about newness.
And the Spirit of God desires to do new things.
But our danger is not in opposition to the new things of God.
It's rigidity towards it.
And there are so many people who've been in church so long
that they become so stuck in their own ways,
and their own experience of church and their own experience of the spirit
and their own experience of Jesus and their own relationship with God.
They become so ingrained in what they've always done
and the way they've always experienced it.
And there's no new expression.
They get stuck in their own style.
They get stuck in their own system.
They get stuck in their own experience.
There's so engraved, ingrained with the way I am
that God can't do anything new.
That they've lost the ability for a new expression.
Not just a new experience of God, but a new expression
of themselves.
And we get so content with the old expression,
I come in, I sit down, I listen to the band,
I listen to the bald guy who sometimes he does a decent job.
I don't say hi to anybody.
I'm not doing anything new.
I walk out, maybe I show up the next week, maybe I don't.
I'll be back at some point.
And there's no elasticity and there's no newness.
And God will not pour new wine of his spirit
in an old rigid container.
It will destroy you.
And God doesn't want he won't say, that's fine.
You want to be rigid?
Stay over there in a corner, do your thing,
but you will never experience a new move of the spirit
ever.
It's too alive and it's too big,
and it's too active for people to say, it was good.
Didn't like the song.
So much is all right.
You know what?
No way I'm going to do this
when I'm singing, I that's that's a little bit crazy.
Never done it. Don't.
That won't ever.
If ever be in a position to pray out loud in public.
And the moment someone asks you, your eyes do this.
I shouldn't sing well, I do, I just aren't comfortable with that.
Yeah, yeah, because you're so rigid.
God can't pour new wine into you.
You're not flexible anymore.
The truth is, a Holy Spirit fills
surrendered hearts, not stubborn ones.
Listen,
Jesus did not come to patch up what's old,
he can't replace it.
We have to stay elastic.
Every person in this passage has responded differently.
Friends carried someone to Jesus, the paralytic, and trusted Jesus.
Matthew. Follow Jesus.
The Pharisees were rigid towards Jesus, and the disciples simply just enjoyed him.
The question is not what is Jesus doing?
The question is, which person will I be?
Listen, we don't need a better version of our life.
We need a whole new one.
To understand.
You don't need to be with the best version of you.
You can be.
You and I need to be a whole new person.
And that's what Jesus came to do.
Father, thank you
that your mercies are new every morning.
Thank you for your grace,
the favor that you pour out
on old, rigid people like me.
Continue.
Pour your mercy and grace on us.
I pray that we choose to stay elastic,
ready for a new work.
Friends,
if you've never given your life to Jesus, I want to encourage you in this moment.
Just say a real simple prayer.
The ABCd of Faith.
This prayer won't save you.
Only Jesus saves you.
But this prayer is you surrendering to him.
Just simply this I admit I've sinned
and lived my own way.
I believe Jesus died
for my sins and rose again.
Forgive me.
I accept your forgiveness.
I commit to turn from my sin
and I dedicate my life to you.
Help me live for you openly,
without shame and without hesitation.
Amen.
Said I love you.
I'm proud of you.
Read Matthew nine the whole chapter this week, over and over and over.
Let him bubble up inside and we'll finish chapter nine next week.
You understand?
One last plug for the evangelism
class tonight.
Stay elastic.
Learn how to do this and the way that fits you
so you can fulfill your purpose on this earth.
If you're a Christian and still breathe
and this is the only reason you're still alive,
understand that call.
Understand that responsibility. Quit neglecting it.
Delayed obedience is just disobedience.
Learn how to share your faith.
So you can carry your friends who are paralyzed in faith.
To Jesus.
6:00 tonight
listening.